Motion Picture Herald (Nov-Dec 1944)

SHOWMEN'S REVIEWS SHORT SUBJECTS RELEASE CHART BY COMPANIES SERVICE DATA THE RELEASE CHART This department deals with new product from the point of view of the exhibitor who is to purvey it to his own public. bara Stanwyck, Craig Stevens, Joseph Szigeti, Donald Woods, Jane Wyinan. And — in case you'd begun to think the list was endless— Jimmy Dorsey and his band, Carmen Cavallaro and his orchestra, the Golden Gate quartette, Rosario & Antonio, Sons of the Pioneers, Julie Bishop, Barbara Brown, Theodore Von Eltz, Mary Godron, Betty Brodel, Eddie Marr, Chef Milani and Robert Shayne. The things this vast array of entertainers do Hollywood Canteen Warner Bros. — All-S+ar Musical, and Heart, Too Nobody's marquee is big enough to accommodate the names of all the stars in this picture, and any showman with the faintest inkling of his customers' preferences can find in the list enough of their favorites to oversupply billing requirements. But that's only the uppermost fact of importance in consideration of a picture which has, to paraphrase another Warner picture, "all this and heart, too." We'll get down to the list of names — so lengthy and stellar that the studio bills them in alphabetical order — in a couple of paragraphs, but the picture in whole claims attention first. It runs two hours and three minutes — after heart-breaking cutting from a much greater dimension— but you've got to clock it to know :hat, because it seems scarcely half that long in the seeing. And it's episodic, even spotty, .neandering some of the time and sprinting from place to place like soldiers on leave some of -he rest of the time. But that's what it's about — soldiers on leave — and the imstudied, unmeasured )attern which the picture follows fits the subject 33 a bomber fits its purpose. For achieving his supreme appropriateness of treatment to malerial and objective, Alex Gottlieb, producer, and Delmar Daves, director-writer, merit all the honors here are in store for them, which will be plenty, Dcyond question. However, they rate a very extra pecial kind of honor for managing to put into this leterogeneous cavalcade of individual entertainments a hunk of heart as big and warm and fine as he tears in a sweetheart's eyes when she bids her oldier goodbye, and the lump in his throat. The device by which this appeal to honest emoion is made to strike with the impact of a War department dispatch is so simple as to give rise to .vonder why no craftsman faced with a similar op)ortunity has thought of doing it before now, which s the more reason for hailing its present doers. Robert Hutton, portraying a soldier back from the ^acific, arrives in Hollywood enamoured of Joan -eslie, meets her at the Hollywood Canteen, where iette Davis and John Garfield stage an incident n which he gets to kiss her, enjoys her company luring the weekend of his stay in town and goes way — she kisses him goodbye at the train — in love ^•ith her and knowing she feels the same way bout him. That's all there is to it— all there is to he main line on which the whole of the story langs, that is — but, and you can ask any soldier, ailor or Marine, it's a dream-fulfillment such as he screen accomplishes only in the rare moments >hen it touches the pinnacle of its usefulness. Now for the players, in the order of their listing y the studio, whose names the picture puts in the and of a showman playing the attraction. They re: The Andrews Sisters, Jack Benny, Toe E. '.rown, Eddie Cantor, Kitty Carlisle, Jack Carson, Jane Clark, Joan Crawford, Helmut Dantine, Beti Davis, Victor Francen, John Garfield, Sydney Treenstreet, Alan Hale, Paul Henreid, Robert futton, Andrea King, Joan Leslie, Peter Lorre, da Lupino, Irene Manning, Nora Martin, Joan I"Cracken, Dolores Moran. Dennis Morgan, Janis 'aige, Eleanor Parker, William Prince, Joyce Reynolds, John Ridgely, Roy Rogers and Trigger, Z. Sakall, Zachary Scott, Alexis Smith, Bar are the things they do best, a wide variety of things,_ as the names suggest, and it's for each and every individual who sees the picture to choose for himself the things he deems best. Solely as one such individual, this fan is torn between the Jack Benny-Joseph Szigeti sequence, in which Jack kids along in typical fashion but closes with a few bars that betray the virtuosity he commonly conceals for commercial reasons, and the Cavallaro piano number, with orchestra, which can be compared with nothing similar in film history except Jose Iturbi's performances in a couple of MGM musicals. So much for that. It's every man, woman and child for himself, and there's more than plenty of everything for everybody. There are no places on this planet, and no kinds of theatres, where this picture does not belong. As to what it will gross — how high is up? Previeived at the studio. Revieiver's Rating : Excellent. — William R. Weaver. Release date, PCA No. 9819. Dec. 30, 1944. Running time, 123 min. General audience classification. -fOTION PICTURE HERALD, DECEMBER 9, 1944 National Velvet MGM— Jwo Hours That Seem Like One Under Pandro Berman's superb production auspices and Clarence Brown's faultless direction, Mickey Rooney, Donald Crisp and sparkling support furnish 124 entertainment minutes that seem half that many. Filmed on a massive scale in faithful Technicolor, the Theodor Reeves — Helen Deutsch script, based on Enid Bagnald's novel, tells with warmth and feeling how a little girl (12-year-old Elizabeth Taylor, who captures stardom in her first picture) succeeds, by the force of a serene faith P'^ture will be loved by all observers who are not in what she believes, in riding her horse to vie loggerheads with mankind, tory in the Grand National Steeplechase. Be Previeimd at the studio. Reviewer's Ratine,: cause of these and other factors which do not R. W. t„ • 1 J -J. ^1 • Release date, rot set. Running time, 124 mm. PCA >ield readily to reportorial description, the pic No. 10321. General audience classification. ture is its own assurance of maximum yield in Mi Taylor Mickey Rooney any situation against any competition. Mr'^^B i Elizabeth Taylor Rooney turns in his best performance to date m^s. EiX'n.'.\V.\V.V.V.-V.V.V.\\V.V.V.V.V.V.V.\V.A^^^^ as an orphan, unscrupulous in intent but re Jackie Jenkins. Angela Lansbury, Reginald Owen, Juanita deemed by the precepts of the family which be ^'^'^ Freeman, friends him. He keeps little spotlight for himself but troupes magnificently as the companion and Ctic^c\ \r\ fU^ M^uca aid of a child whose love of horses has brought VjUcJbl III lllC n(JU56 her to ownership of one that carries her to her jr a c!t^^^L^„„ n • r> • • ci r dreams. Crisp as the child's father and Anne ^ A-Strombcrg — Poison, Dnpp\nq S\oy/\y Revere as her mother provide parental sequences From the stage play by Hagar Wilde and Dale rich in emotion, in humor, in earthy philosophy M. Eunson, Hunt Stromberg has produced a strong and human understanding, that rate with the top and intelligent attraction in "Guest in the House." entertainment of screen history. They are featured It ranks well up toward the top of the heap in the m a cast that might have been born to the parts. current Hollywood cycle in psychological-patho England in the late 'Twenties is the scene. logical strain. No doubt, there will be those who Rooney comes to a small town to steal, remains will view it as the best of the lot. to train a horse that changes the course of the Ketti Fring's screen play is a solid construction family's life for a while but never its viewpoint or job. Behind it, of course, was the play itself. It destiny, and then goes on his way, determined to had drama of substance to tell, thereby practically make good and return when he has done so. assuring an interesting and well-done film if those Most of the action takes place in a small town charged with the translation from stage to screen and is composed of small but vitally related inci did their work well. They did, and the results now dents. But when the story moves to the running go on display. of the Grand National it steps up its tempo and The story revolves around a neurotic, on-the expands its scale to present a sequence which mental-fringe girl whose bad heart makes her dwarfs all racing pictures in history for excitement, crafty, selfish, dominating and also unscrupulous, suspense and spectacle. This is the sequence that Her victims are a commercial artist, his wife and will be talked about, but every sequence in the their child, an aunt, a model and a brother. The 2213